Saturday and Sunday of the Pickering Challenge Cup

My Saturday games didn't start until noon, so I got to the rink a little early to give some feedback to some offiicals who were reffing in the Pickering Tournament (non challenge cup games), and then at noon I was back on the ice for Manitoba vs New Brunswick. Apparently Manitoba found their game over night as it appeared to be an entirely different team. They beat New Brunswick 11 - 2. So, from initial appearances Ontario and Alberta may be the top of the heap, but Quebec, New Brunswick, and Manitoba could upset them on any given day. Saskachewan and Nova Scotia didn't come down for the challenge cup, but I would generally be willing to throw them in the mix as well. With these events it is all about peaking at the right time. With the games still 2 1/2 months away, you can get a feel for the teams, but who knows what will happen when we get to Halifax.

I was then off until 7:00 when I reffed Quebec vs Alberta. Quebec came out strong with 2 goals in the first 6 minutes, and although Alberta came back to tie it, with just over 6 minutes remaining, Quebec scored to go ahead for good. The final was 3 - 2. As I said, the teams are quite close so it is a toss up who will make it to the finals of the challenge cup, I am not even going to start guessing who will come out on top in Halifax.

Sunday there were two games, one round robin game and the finals. I was asked to ref the round robin game between Quebec and BC. A little disappointing as I was hoping for the final (I am always hoping for the final) but will go out and skate whatever is asked of me. I had a little difficulty mentally getting into the game, it was a choppy game, without a lot of flow to it. BC was taking a lot of penalties (12 minors penalties - 2) and ultimately it cost them on the scoreboard as the final was 9 - 2 for Quebec. Overall I wasn't happy with the game I skated, partially on my part, as I wasn't in the position I wanted to be at several times through the game, and any time the penalties are so lopsided, it is difficult to stay consistent, as to continue to call the same level of penalties against a team that has already taken 12 would mean we are going to be there all night. Just generally speaking wasn't happy with the game. Hopefully the next time I see the teams in Halifax, I will feel better about the game.

Overall I was happy to get the chance to skate the Challenge Cup as it was a real eye opener on what to expect come February. Better pack the fast socks...

Wow, this is going to be fast

Well, I had my first opportunity to see some of the Canada Games teams when they played in a Challenge Cup in Pickering December 2 - 5. I have skated a Gold medal game at Nationals and a couple bronze medal games and I guess going in I was expecting it to be about the same level as those games. I was wrong. What I hadn't accounted for was the difference between a club team with their base 12 - 15 players adding the top 3 or 4 other players in the province to make up a nationals roster, vs these teams which are the top 18 players in the province. The speed and skill was quite impressive.

I started off on the Thursday night reffing Manitoba vs Ontario. Ontario won the game 11 - 5, and although Manitoba struggled to keep up with Ontario in this game, as the weekend would progress they would steadily improve. In some respects I find skating games at this speed and skill easier, as generally if teams make their passes, I can skate with them, and plan for where I need to be, the problem comes in when they miss passes and we constantly have to stop and start, that is really when I get tired quickly.

After going to work all day Friday, I was back at Delaney in the late afternoon to ref BC and New Brunswick. I was unsure what they game was going to look like going in, as New Brunswick has made some real strides forward in the competitiveness of their program the last few years, giving them a real chance to win any game against any team, and BC is usually a wild card, I am never sure what we are going to get from them. Again both teams played fairly well, not quite as strong in terms of nailing every pass, but very good none the less. New Brunswick took the game 11 - 7 in a high scoring game. I had a couple hours off before my next game and watched the Alberta vs Ontario game. This had to be one of the best games I have seen, in terms of speed. Alberta ended up winning 4 - 2.

Next for me was the late night game between Quebec and Manitoba. This was a more physical game, than the others I had done so far, which usually means they aren't quite as fast. Manitoba was still working to find their game and lost 6 - 1.

Invite to CWG's

One of my officiating goals for the last several years, since going to nationals really, has been to get asked to officiate at the Canada Winter Games. It is one of only 3 events I haven't officiated at (the other two being the World Championships and the World Club Championships) and is quite the process to go. The criteria is based on your overall officiating rankings, and ulitmately acheiving your level 5. For those that aren't aware, a level 5 ranking is acheived based on your performance at the last two national championships (and usually 3). You generally have to have a strong enough week to earn either a bronze medal or gold medal game in two or three consecutive years, and it is then based on the recommendation of the supervisors, and officating committee.

After the CRC's (Canadian Ringette Championships) in April, I was notified that I had received my level 5 this year. Given level 5's are the first on the list to be asked to officiate at the CWG's, and there aren't that many in the country, I was hopeful to get an invite, but still didn't want to get my hopes up too high.

Thankfully the call did come at the end of June asking if I would go. Another week away from the family will be hard but it is a big opportunity. Should be a strong officiating crew with Brent, Benoit, Karen, Mary-Lynn, Janyce, Danielle, Lori and I, and a good time as well. Needless to say I was quite excited. Wasn't sure what the event was going to be like, but was pretty sure it was going to be enjoyable. Halifax 2011 here I come.

Back at it for Canada Winter Games

Well Ringette Canada asked me yesterday if I would consider blogging during the Canada Winter Games from the perspective of a referee, similar to what I did for the U19 championships, so I figured I would dust off the blogger account from the U19's change the name, and get started. I did officiate one of the challenge cups leading up to Canada games so will include some thoughts around that, in one of my next posts, will also include some of my thoughts on my selction and achieving one of my major officiating goals.

Thanks to everyone

I wanted to put up a final post saying thank you to everyone who made this trip possible for me. My family for giving me the time away from my committment to them, I know it was a lot for me to be gone for almost two weeks and I appreciate the sacrifice that they made, to work for allowing me the time off, Ringette Canada for the opportunity to go to this great event and represent not only them, but all of my fellow officials in Canada, our officiating team in Prague of Karen, Risto, Merja and Leslie, the members of the IRF who made the event happen, everyone at Challenger Hockey in Prague who were responsible for all of our travels in Europe, meals and the running of the event itself. The teams, who provided some great games during the event, and everyone else who made this trip possible.

It was truly something I will remember for the rest of my life. I hope to have other opportunities in the coming years in my officiating career, however if I don't, this is a great highlight in officiating for me.

If you would like to see more pictures, in the next couple of days I will load them onto facebook at www.facebook.com/rdrury

Not quite as planned

This was the view of Wurzburg from the pedistrian walking bridge over the river.

A view of the local castle up on the hill from the pedistrian walking bridge

This was a picture of Merja and I at the start of the Bronze medal game on Saturday.

We left Prague at about 5:30 on Saturday, destined for Wurzburg where we would spend the night. We made a stop at the Czech/Germany border at about 7:00 for dinner (McDonalds), the players were happy with this, as many of them haven't eaten this for 7 months since they started training for the event, but it wasn't really high on my list of places I wanted to eat. I got one of their salads which wasn't too bad. We were then back on the road, and got to Wurzburg at about 10:00 pm. We checked in, and then I went for a walk around the town to see what there was to see. This was another very nice, German city. The population is about 140,000 but it has a very small feel to it, although the main street we were on was quite busy with pedistrian traffic on Saturday night. The main street, seemed to be a newer shopping district that had a lot of small shops, and a few blocks over there were older churchs and buildings with impressive archatechture. I was pretty tired from the trip so went back to the hotel and went to bed.

The next morning I was up at 6:30, and couldn't get back to sleep (likely anticipation of finally getting to see my family again) and the bus wasn't leaving until 10:30 so I got up, made sure everything was packed, and went for a walk again. There was a light rain falling, but it wasn't too bad. I went back to the hotel at about 7:30 and had breakfast, and then was out walking again around 8:30. I did take some pictures (as I figured it is easier to take too many and delete over deciding after I get home, I really wish I had a picture of XYZ). Then it was back to the hotel to check out at about 10:00 and get ready to load on the bus. There was another 1 1/2 hours to get to the Frankfurt airport and we should be there around noon for our 2:40 flight.

We got to the airport just as we expected, but started to run into problems right away. The tour operator in Canada didn't let them know that our group (with all our excess baggage) was going to be there. This took quite a while to get sorted around, and eventually the coach for Canada East ended up just picking up the tab for the excess baggage and he will sort it out later with the tour operator. However the problems were far from over. Karen (the other Canadian ref) and Beth apparently didn't have tickets for the flight. They had booked their own flight to Germany as they wanted to go to France first, and it would appear their return flight didn't get booked. They are number 4 & 5 on the standby list for the flight (they had to pay and will get their money back) they will have to wait and see if they get on.

We went to see if there was anything to eat, after walking around for a little while, I didn't see much so decided on a sandwich. The Frankfurt airport reminds me a lot of Pearson, both in appearance and lack of decent quick food. Now it was time to clear security, and there were no problems with that, so it was off to the gate.

About 20 minutes before our scheduled boarding time, Karen and Beth got to the gate, apparently they did manage to get on this flight, a good thing too, as this flight was $350 Euros each, if they had to take the 5:00 Air Canada flight it was going to be $3500 Euros each (both are one way prices). We then had an announcement that the flight was going to be 15 minutes delayed due to the plane we are using was late arriving. Not ideal, but not the end of the world.

We loaded onto the plane, and waited for a bit. The pilot then came on and said we had some technical issues, and need to replace a part on the plane, it would be about an hour to get the part and have it installed. Now it was getting tight on whether I was going to be able to see the kids before they went to bed tonight, so was starting to get concerned, but would rather they find the faulty parts on the ground, as opposed to after we take off...

After an hour, the pilot came on again and said there was no sign of the part, so we might as well deplane and wait in the terminal. Great, now I definately won't see the kids before they go to bed. So I get off the plane, and make a call home from a payphone, Sharron was disappointed, but knows there is nothing I can do about it.

At about 5:00 German time we were back on the plane and ready to go. We should be landing at about 8:00 in Toronto, and if all goes well I will be home around 10:00 (which would be nice as I need to be at work in the morning). The flight was fairly uneventful, I found our flight path interesting, as we flew up over the southern portion of Greenland and then down through northern Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Ontario, I guess this is the best path to avoid flying directly into the winds of the jetstream. At about 7:45 we started circling northeast of Toronto. After a little while, the pilot came on and said there were thunderstorms north of Toronto, and we were going to try an approach from the south, so we circled south over Rochester and tried to get into the airport. This is when the pilot came on again and said, the storms were now fully over Pearson and the airport was closed. We are going to have to head to Hamilton. I thought this should be interesting as Hamilton is quite small, and I would be interested to see if they have the capacity to handle an international flight with this number of people. We ended up having to go well west of Hamilton (looked like half way to London) and circle back to get the right approach, and it was still very distrubing, as we were coming down there was lightning all around us.

Once on the ground we waiting for information, and waited and waited. After about an hour, the pilot said that we were waiting for our turn to deal with the ground crews as there were a large number of Toronto flights that had been rerouted to Hamilton. After about 3 hours the pilot told us that Hamilton doesn't have the ability to process everyone (I picture 2 border guards trying to process 30 international flights of a couple hundred people each), so we were going to fly back to Toronto once the weather cleared and we got a flight plan. After another hour of waiting (now at 4 hours) the pilot came on and said that although the weather is now clearing, he and the co pilot have reached their maximum flying time allowed, and we were going to need to get a new flight crew before we can continue on for safety reasons. Thankfully, there was a flight that just came in from Cancun to Hamilton whose pilots haven't reached their maximum time yet, and we could just steal them. This is a much better option than having to fly someone in.

After sitting on the runway in Hamilton for 5 hours on a very hot plane (the air conditioner doesn't work very well when you aren't moving) we were off again. Our flight plan was for an 18 minute flight at a crusing altitude of 6000'. After waiting for so long, I guess I was hoping for something more than that. But oh well at least we will get home.

We landed at about 1:40 am, and got through customs without too many problems (other than the guard asking me why Canada didn't win gold, as if it was my fault, apparently some of the players had already been through), and all the bags made it safely. Now it was time for the drive home, should I be concerned that I am now making a 70 km drive after being up for the last 27 hours? I felt okay, so it was off to the parking lot and heading home. There were a couple of points that I felt like my head was getting heavy, but the drive was uneventful. I got home shortly before 4:00am.

I hoped to be able to sleep in, but for some reason I was awake at 7:00 am. I guess my body is still on German time and thinks it is 1:00 pm.

Gold and Bronze Game

Well this morning was the bronze game. It was a very hard fought battle, both teams brought everything they had. Generally I had an okay game in my opinion, although a couple of times I found myself overthinking again, and had to pull myself back into it. Finland Blue ended up taking the Bronze by 1 goal (I think it was 3 - 2). The gold game just finished, Finland White came from behind to win 6 - 4. There was a flury of goals in about a 7 minute span and it was back and forth, but then Finland scored 3 in a row to go up for good. Canada East took home the silver.

Overall it was a very enjoyable 12 days, and I am looking forward to getting back home to see my family. So off to Wurzburg tonight, and then on to Frankfurt in the morning. Hope to be back on Canadian soil in the early evening tomorrow.